Ralph Train saw a lot of life in the towns surrounding Eagle Point, Oregon and in this video, recalls the many changes he has seen over the years. In Train's own words, "this video includes ancestors, friends, relatives and others and consists of pictures, script and narration. Some are excerpts from other home movies and videos."
Ralph Train was born on May 17, 1915 in Butte Falls, Oregon and died in Eagle Point on October 2, 2008. He lived a full and active life, making his early livelihood in rural Upper Rogue, and later became an educator. Here's just a bit of Train's biography, pieced together from the videos he made as well as reports in the Mail Tribune and other Oregon newspapers.
In the darkest days of the Great Depression, Train enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps and worked at Annie Springs and Evans Creek. He bought the Trusty Lumber Company in Butte Falls not long after his discharge in 1936, and in 1942 signed a quitclaim deed returning the mill to the Trusty family.
Train graduated from Southern Oregon Normal School in 1939 and began his elementary school teaching career in Gold Hill, Oregon. He would become principal at Butte Falls Elementary in 1942, the same year he married Marita Reynolds. In 1945, he and others were arrested for poaching deer at Fish Lake and fined. In 1946, Train moved to the Eugene school system, then Florence, Creswell (where it was convenient for him to finish his University of Oregon master degree) and in 1959, Train was again at the coast as Supervisor of the Brookings School District 40.
Ralph Train was an administrator in the Lane County school system at his retirement in 1975, when he moved home to the Upper Rogue and became active in the Upper Rogue Historical Society where he is remembered today with kindness and good will. This video, "Builders and War," was narrated by Ralph Train, Jim Collier, Denise Carey, Dennis Oswald and Michelle Carey-Holmes.